1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to filtering inadvertent contact with a touch pad device. More particularly, the present invention relates to filtering contact with a touch pad device when the origination point of contact falls within a defined filter area.
2. Description of the Related Art
Touch pad input devices translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on a display screen. Touch pads are commonly integrated in smaller information handling systems, such as laptop computer systems, personal digital assistants (PDAs), some portable media players, and some mobile telephone devices. Touch pads can be used instead of traditional mouse input devices and are preferred in some environments where space is limited, such as when working in confined spaces like that found on commercial airlines.
When integrated in an information handling system, such as in the palm rest area of a laptop computer system, the surface of the touch pad can sometimes be inadvertently touched by the user, such as when the user is typing on the keyboard but a part of the user's hand brushes against the surface of the touch pad. This inadvertent touching causes the cursor, or input location, to move. Inadvertent touching can be frustrating to the user as the input location within a document being typed by the user shifts when the inadvertent touching occurs causing the user's typing to appear in another area of the document rather than where the user intended. Exacerbating this challenge is the trend to have integrated touch pad surfaces be flush with the surrounding surface (e.g., having the touch pad surface be flush with the surface of a palm rest surface in a laptop computer system). These flush mounted track pads increase the chances of inadvertent touching of the track pad surface by the user.